Set and Match
by Saucery
Summary: Detectives Hume and Kowalski indulge in a size contest.


**SET AND MATCH**

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><p>David isn't sure he likes this Kowalski guy. Or the questions he keeps asking.<p>

"So, you've got one of 'em, too?" Kowalski looks Farve up and down.

Farve clears his throat. "The use of the word 'got' would imply a degree of ownership, which is both inaccurate and inappropriate, as David and I are - "

"Yeah," says David. "I've got one." He totally isn't being possessive, at all. Or - or _protective_. Just because he's taken a step in front of Farve - who's taller than him, _anyway_ - well, it doesn't mean anything.

"I believe we can see that," says Fraser, tone just _shy_ of wry, if androids can be said to be wry, which, okay. _Okay_.

Farve's eyes flick to David, and then to Fraser. "There may have been some improvements in interpersonal communication and empathic mimesis, since you are, after all, an advanced model. It is an honor to meet you, Constable Benton Fraser."

"The honor," Fraser says, "is all mine. I am delighted to meet my prototype."

"Delighted," mutters Kowalski. "Huh."

Fraser sends him a _quelling_ glance.

Quelling? Really? Damn, those must've been some improvements. All Farve can manage is a helpless, please-don't-go-there look that probably belongs on a baby deer. Not that David doesn't _like_ that look - more than is _healthy_ - but still. "He take a bullet for you, yet?" And why the hell did he ask that?

"A few times." Kowalski's mouth quirks. "Too many times."

Well, _yeah_, no one wants to see their partner get _shot_, even if said partner is a plasma-based android fully capable of regenerating, but - "Nine times?"

Kowalski's mouth _thins_. "Six."

"Right."

"He watch porn with you, yet?"

"A few times." _Not_ too many. _Never_ too many. God, David can't get enough of Farve's _blush_ - that awkward, awful blush that manages to be convincing _despite_ being entirely artificial.

"Right."

Fraser and Farve are staring at them. David ignores 'em, because, seriously? This is man to _man_. "He sing karaoke with you, yet?"

"Nope. He go FUBAR on you, yet?"

"Yeah. He get drunk with you, yet?"

"Yep. He have se - _ow_!" And suddenly, Kowalski's hopping around, clutching his foot.

"My apologies," says Fraser, with a sort of icy calm that is eerily at odds with the warm - _too_-warm - smile on his face. That's probably the look he gets when he politely bitch-slaps a criminal, or something. "I appear to have stepped on your foot. Accidentally."

There is a silence, in which Kowalski hops around some more, and _glares_, and David tries to pick his jaw up off the floor.

The silence is broken when Farve says, in all earnestness: "That was no accident." He sounds _scandalized_. Like those grandmas in Dad's old retirement home, whenever David used a swear word. "Constable Fraser, I distinctly saw your eyes tracking Detective Kowalski's foot prior to your stepping on it. Additionally, you were not standing close to him, and it would have required dedicated thought and motor-coordination to - "

"Farve," interrupts David, like he always does. "It's an expression. It's just an expression."

"I was not aware," says Farve, still wide-eyed like that goddamn baby deer, "that an act of physical aggression is 'just' an 'expression'." Heck, the quotes are even audible.

Fraser inclines his head in something that isn't, quite, an admission of guilt. "My upgrades allow me greater leeway in my interpersonal communication, as you, yourself, have observed."

"You mean," wheezes Kowalski, slowly righting himself and lowering his foot gingerly to the floor, "you're allowed to _lie_. And _hurt people_."

"I do not hurt 'people', plural." Great. The quotes are audible here, too.

"Just me. Yeah, lucky me. See how lucky I am, Hume?"

"Oh, yeah." David is _not_ snickering. He's not. Plus, it's kind of obvious from the way Kowalski's flushing that hurting him isn't the only thing Fraser does for and _to_ him, so.

"Please," says Fraser, "excuse us, so that we may convey our greetings to Superintendent Erenthal on the behalf of the Canadian consulate." His voice _gentles_, somehow, when he turns to Farve. "It truly was a pleasure to meet you, Detective. I did not mean to alarm you with my behavior. For that, I am genuinely sorry. I assure you that my intentions were good, and my methods… inevitable. Perhaps you will allow me to explain over dinner."

"Hey!" Kowalski yelps indignantly - no more indignantly than David _feels_, because, _what_? "You're asking him _out_?"

"If you will excuse us," Fraser repeats, that too-warm smile on his face, again. His hand closes around Kowalski's arm, and he all but drags the guy to Erenthal's office.

David watches them go. "Jesus," he says, and sags against his desk. "I like you better."

"You do?"

David _blinks_, and, yeah, that's the tension going out of Farve's shoulders - so subtle that most humans wouldn't even notice it was _there_, but then, David isn't most humans. He's _Farve's_ human. "Obviously. You honestly didn't think - "

And there's that awkward blush. Score. "He is… more functional."

"Hey, last time I checked, you were _totally_ functional. Super-functional, even."

Farve smiles at him. It's the tiny, almost-not-there smile that means it's the real one; it isn't the overblown monstrosity of a smile that Fraser had, that looked like Fraser was a perfect, upstanding citizen who maybe also had decapitated babies buried in his backyard. It's a good thing David talked Farve out of his own version of that smile, early on. "Thank you, David."

"No need to thank me, Farve." He's leering, and he knows it. "But after your absolutely platonic dinner with your absolutely platonic android buddy, how about you take me out for a _real_ dinner? Show me how functional you really are?"

Farve's eyes _gleam_. That might be actual circuitry, right there. "I find that to be an acceptable plan of action."

"Glad to be, heh, acceptable."

"As am I," says Farve, and settles a hand of his own on David's arm. "As am I."

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><p><strong>fin.<strong>  
>Please review!<p>

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><p><strong>to be continued.<strong>  
>Please review!<p> 


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